THE HOT SUMMER IS OVER

The hot summer in Turkish politics is coming to an end. On 10 August, the Turks voted in nationwide presidential elections for the first time in the country's history. Just as most experts had forecasted, the leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Recep Tayyip Erdogan, gained a landslide victory. After serving as the prime minister for 12 years, he has become the 12th president of Turkey.  

Erdogan received 52 per cent of the votes. His main rival, the only candidate from the leading opposition forces - the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu (from 2005 to 2014 he occupied the post of General Secretary of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation) received 39 per cent of the vote.

The election campaign in Turkey was beset by an extremely acute struggle.  The chances of Erdogan and Ihsanoglu were almost equal, taking into account the results of the elections to the local authorities back in March. At these elections, Erdogan received 45.6 per cent of the vote, while the CHP and MHP got

27.8 and 15.2 per cent of the vote respectively. This means that the two biggest opposition parties that entered Ihsanoglu as their candidate in the presidential elections were supported by 43 per cent of the population.

In this situation, the votes of supporters of the pro-Kurdish organisation, first and foremost the Peace and Democracy Party (PDP), which put forward Salahattin Demirtas as their candidate for head of state, were able to play a decisive role. In the run-up to the elections, the CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu had a consultation meeting with the leading Kurdish politicians. The parties discussed the possibility of the Kurds supporting the opposition candidate in the second round of the voting. The experts did not rule out this scenario in the event that the Kemal supporters [CHP members] and the nationalists [MHP members] would guarantee that the "Kurdish question" would be resolved.

But, to all appearances, the Kurds did not decide to do a deal with the opposition since the chances of Erdogan winning were more likely right from the start, so it would not have been a sufficiently pragmatic move to stake on his rivals. What is more, there was no need for this since one round of voting was sufficient for Erdogan to win. The Kurdish candidate, Salahattin Demirtas, managed to win the support of only just over nine per cent of the voters (in the main these were residents of the Kurd-populated provinces in the east and south-east of the country).

The winner in the elections stated that the nation had taken its decision and expressed its will in its vote. Erdogan promised a new era in reconciliation in society. To all appearances, this is precisely what today's Turkey needs most, since throughout the last few years the country has literally been shaken by increasingly fierce confrontation between the government and opposition circles, which has taken on the form of mass protest actions and numerous political and corruption controversies. It is not just a question of resolving that very Kurdish question as soon as possible, which has been the main irritant causing internal political instability for a long time now.

The election campaign took place in conditions of recalcitrant confrontation between Erdogan and the so-called "state within a state", "the parallel structure" headed by the Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen who lives in the USA. Within the framework of the struggle against the Gulen supporters, the Turkish authorities have carried out wide-scale operations to purge the cadres in the bodies of law and order. Even in the last few days of the election race dozens of policemen who were considered to be Gulen supporters were arrested and accused in particular of hacking the telephone conversations of representatives of both the ruling and opposition parties, as well as of the members of the Turkish prime minister's family.

Stabilising the situation in Turkey is particularly significant in conditions of a transition from a parliamentary republic to a presidential one, towards the formation of which the recent elections were the first important step. The elections confirmed the popularity of the ruling party, which is considered to be a moderate Islamic party. But at the same time the support for Ihsanoglu by quite a large part of the population was a warning signal that by no means everyone in Turkey is happy with Erdogan's policies. 

Over the years that Prime Minister Erdogan has been in office the country has undoubtedly made a considerable leap forward in its economic development. Properly speaking, it was precisely the economic successes that were the trump card of the AK Party's leader during the election campaign. What is more, Erdogan is promising that by 2023, the centenary of the Turkish Republic, the country will have one of the strongest economies in the world. But the attempts being made by the government to revise the ideological and political heritage of the state's founder. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, have provoked hostility among those who prefer Turkey to pursue a secular path. Erdogan will have to take this into account in the period of his forthcoming presidency.

The Turkish public takes a somewhat ambiguous attitude to the country's foreign policy. Owing to the war in Gaza, the Middle East was a considerable factor in the election marathon in Turkey. Erdogan's anti-Israel rhetoric (he accused Israel of "systematic genocide" of the Palestinians and, on the day after he was elected president, he stated that Turkey would equip a flotilla to overcome the blockade of the Gaza sector) promoted a strengthening of his standing in Turkey's conservative circles.

At the same time, an ever increasing number of Turkish citizens are not happy with the Ankara's attempts to actively intervene in the Middle East conflicts, in particular in the internal affairs of a number countries that have been undergone the so-called "Arab revolution". Turkey's involvement in the Syrian conflict has become an increasing headache. The CHP and the MNP are blaming Erdogan for Turkey being dragged into the "quagmire" of the Middle East owing to the mistakes he has made in his foreign policy which many people in the world regard as almost backing the "Jihadists".

Besides this, it is indisputable that during his premiership he managed to boost Ankara's participation in Black Sea and South Caucasus policy, within the framework of which, Turkey alongside Russia, is acting as one of the great-power pillars of regional security. There can be no doubt that, as head of the Turkish state, Erdogan is trying to boost his success in this field, proceeding from a foreign policy in which Ankara is bound to place greater importance on a Nagornyy Karabakh settlement and consolidating a strategic union with Azerbaijan.

Attention should be paid to the fact that it was precisely when the presidential race in Turkey was at its height that some circles in the world once again began to whip up the matter of possibly opening the Turkish-Armenian frontier. Official Yerevan and the Western powers backing it persistently recalled the Zurich protocols of 2009 that have not been implemented. The worldwide Armenian diaspora, stepping up its efforts gain recognition for the so-called "genocide in the Ottoman empire" on the threshold of marking this "Armenian date" are trying to use this issue to bring greater pressure to bear on Ankara.  

At the same time, it is obvious that the proposed opening of the Armenian-Turkish border is not only connected with the problems of bilateral policy, but with the aspirations of certain foreign centres. First and foremost, the USA and Europe, are interested in getting relations going between Ankara and Yerevan, since Turkey's presence in Armenia would mean to that the latter would gradually be withdrawn from Russia's sphere of influence and this would correspondingly strengthen the West's positions in the region.

But the reality is such that, in spite of the desire of Yerevan itself to normalise co-operation with Turkey, which might help to save the extremely crisis-ridden Armenian economy, the prospects for opening the frontier between the two states remain illusory just as before. Official Ankara is juxtaposing the West's pressure relating to the "Armenian question" with the assertion of its own fundamental stand, according to which relations with Yerevan will only be possible once the occupation of Azerbaijani territories has ceased. The closest comrade-in-arms of the acting head of the Turkish state, Abdullah Gul, member of the Foreign Affairs' Consultative Council under the [former] Turkish president, Gurcan Turkoglu, has said that "there are no grounds for asserting that the frontier with Armenia will opened any time soon".

Armenian experts are not hiding their own concerns that during Erdogan's forthcoming presidency Ankara will pursue a more stringent political course, as a result of which Yerevan will not have any hope of possible economic co-operation with Turkey unless the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict is resolved. 

It is noteworthy in this connection that Azerbaijan is to be the destination of Erdogan's first visit as head of the Turkish state. So, this will perpetuate the 15-year-long custom that, following their election victories, it is precisely in Baku that the presidents of Turkey "make their debut on the world stage".